Libya’s prime minister and several foreign powers have endorsed the holding of a national election on December 24, as envisaged in a United Nations-backed peace plan aimed at resolving years of turmoil and division.
Speaking at the Libya Stabilisation Conference in Tripoli on Thursday, Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah said it was possible to end the crisis that has engulfed the country since the NATO-backed uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
“We support the efforts of the higher election committee to hold [the vote] on the planned date. I call for wide and effective participation of Libyans in the elections,” Dbeibah said.
Elections have been viewed as a key step in ending a decade of violence and creating a new political leadership whose legitimacy is widely accepted.
The final communique at the conference, which included foreign ministers from France, Italy, and Arab states, as well as US and United Nations officials, stressed the importance of taking confidence-building measures in order to hold a fair, transparent,
and inclusive vote.
The UN process had called for presidential and parliamentary elections on December 24 but wrangling over the rules governing the vote and questions about its credibility had threatened to unravel the peace process.
The presidential and parliamentary votes were set for the same day but last month the parliament announced that the legislative elections, the country’s first since 2014, would be postponed until January.
